1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display control apparatus, method, and a storage medium, in particular, to a technique for superimposing an object on an image.
2. Description of the Related Art
In TV receivers, there are known techniques for displaying in a superimposing manner display information such as the channel or volume in a predetermined position of a video image. In recent years, the digitization of television broadcasts has made it necessary to superimpose and display a variety of digital information beyond such display information on video.
In the field of computers such as personal computers, application techniques are known for continuously displaying information related to the time or weather forecast, etc. on the video image. With such application techniques, the position of information or objects displayed on the video image is typically fixed irrespective of the video image or can be changed by a user operation per object within a predetermined range.
However, in the case where the position of the overlaid object is fixed irrespective of the video image, the viewer may be obstructed from following what is going on in the video image if the object is overlaid on a portion of the video image where there is a lot of fast action or where the characters of a caption or the like are displayed. Also, in a configuration in which the position of an overlaid object can be changed by a user operation, the user is faced with the hassle of having to continually operate an operation unit such as a mouse or remote controller.
In contrast, a configuration is known in which the user preselects a specific object that he or she does not want to be overlaid with another object in moving image content, and a blank region that does not overlap the specific object is detected and an object to be inserted is superimposed/displayed in the detected blank region (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-188525).
However, the configuration of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-188525 cannot be applied to images that require real-time processing such as a television broadcast since the specific object in the content needs to be selected in advance. Even in the case of stored moving image content, there are many obstacles to acquiring precise outline information on an object with respect to images such as scenery, nature and so on, often making it impossible in reality for the user to preselect a specific object that he or she does not want to be overlaid with other objects.